“Our own history has not been a perfect history on point. The United States is not yet where it should be on this and other issues. We’ve made a lot of progress, but we’re not here to point fingers, that would be a hypocritical thing for us,” Larson said.”

RANDY Berry and Todd Larson wanted Jamaicans to have a clear understanding of the reason for their visit to the island last week. So, in an interview with the Jamaica Observer lasting just under 30 minutes, the US Government officials stated m …

Maurice TomlinsonThanks, Freddie! I am STILL hoping that the issue of EXPORTED homophobia will be acknowledged, and I said as much to someone from the US govt. today. It is absolutely crucial to disrupt the narrative that somehow people from the global south are inherently and intrinsically homophobic. We are not. We had to be TAUGHT to hate.

Freddie ArpsExported homophobia needs to be addressed: the past and present campaigns that Christianists are waging.

Do we actually know anything about the start of homophobia or misogyny?

Does it just come from fear of the “other” and did all societies know some form of it?

I always thought Wicca/paganism/Druidism had none of it, but I don’t know for sure…

Stephen TattleI have to admit that I struggle with the “exported homophobia” concept as being THE reason. It seems a little too simple an explanation. Do people not have the choice whether or not they buy into what they hear? Where is individual responsibility?

Freddie ArpsThat’s how mass hysteria works though… Large groups and repetition, repetition, repetition.

Individual emotions and reactions disappear and with them individual responsibility…

It’s psych 101 unfortunately.

We could have prosecuted every individual in Germany after world war 2. We stuck with leaders and exceptionally murderous doctors and camp guards.

We opted to see choice as murky water and to understand that people as a group act differently than they would have on their own.

That is why it is so important to react with Maurice Tomlinson‘s “acknowledge, respect and engage”

We in “the group of” Canada, Europe used to dismiss LGBTI persons as unacceptable.

Now we need to engage people in other countries by giving them information and ideas about how to accept LGBTI persons in their lives and in their communities. And connect those to their own culture that has plenty of space for acceptance. Probably start with this last part.

Stephen TattleI keep saying to myself – some day when Maurice and I are both in the office, I really need to grab him for a quick lunch to discuss this and to figure out what I am apparently not seeing.

Maurice TomlinsonStephen, research conducted by the University of the West Indies in 2011 and 2012 highlighted the correlation between religious fundamentalism and murder music (which itself relies on religious fundamentalism for most of its lyrics). So, while Jamaicans certainly have the agency to hate, they had to be taught whom to hate. And this (mis)education is the function of imported evangelical religious practice and a centuries old British colonially-imposed anti-gay law. Regrettably, in Jamaica as elsewhere, many people are simply too lazy to interrogate the root of their deeply held homophobia. It is easier to simply accept that gays are an “abomination” because the pastor says so.

Stephen TattleMaurice Tomlinson There are about 150 things/questions I would like to say/ask in response, but it is not possible in a forum such as this. I am not a “tech” guy and am new to social media and I cannot express opinions in few enough words which a forum such as this requires. I am still a old-school talker who needs 2-way exchange of ideas to form opinions and understand things, which our electronic age makes more and more challenging! I would still love an opportunity to discuss this issue and hope that might some day be possible.